


Magneto vs. The Magical X-Men

by aesc



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Calm Down Erik, Canon Disabled Character, Charles Is a Darling, Crack, Humor, Inspired by Fanart, M/M, Magneto is a Fanboy, Meta, humor with a side of serious, it's all meta up in here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-06
Updated: 2013-02-09
Packaged: 2017-11-28 09:31:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/672881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aesc/pseuds/aesc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Technically, <i>Magical X-Men</i> was something Magneto knew he should hate with every fiber of his being not devoted to hating ignorant humans. It was animated for one. For two, it featured an unbelievably optimistic protagonist whose adventures were, in addition to being flagrantly unrealistic, a method of inculcating wrong-headed lessons about how everyone could love each other and protect the earth and make the world a better place. Finally, it exercised an unreasonable attraction that turned every fan of the <i>Magical X-Men</i> into simpering, squealing teenagers. Only Magneto seemed immune.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [palalife](https://archiveofourown.org/users/palalife/gifts).



> First, many thanks to [palalife](http://palalife.tumblr.com), who is utterly lovely and inspirational and draws the most adorable things. She posted [this adorable comic](http://palalife.tumblr.com/post/42260873259/magneto-going-to-con-because-he-is-a-fanboy-of) of fanboy!Magneto going to a convention to get his Professor X plushie and _Magical X-Men_ posters, and I just had to write something. I hope you enjoy this, my love! ♥
> 
> [Cesare](http://codenamecesare.tumblr.com) has also written the completely amazing and hilarious tale of Magneto's first (and probably last) experience with a beta reader, "[Beta notes on '2 Minutes Before Midnight'](http://archiveofourown.org/works/672244)." Go read it, you will love it!
> 
> I don't know if I'll keep posting snippets of this in the original thread over on Tumblr, but one way or another the rest of the fic will end up here. I've added in a few bits and bridges to the original four snippets as well, so I hope this version will read a little more smoothly.

At any other time, Magneto would never be caught dead in Las Vegas. The overwhelming, human _tawdriness_ of it would suffice all on its own to ensure he never set foot in the place if he could help it, but in addition his archenemy, Sebastian Shaw, claimed Las Vegas as his territory. In recent years Shaw had downgraded his operations significantly, focusing on corruption and graft instead of outright destruction now that Magneto had stolen his telepathy-blocking helmet, so really, he was not worthy of the title _archenemy_ anymore, but Magneto had enough petty annoyances in his life without adding Shaw to the list.

Only one thing could bring him to Las Vegas, and Magneto had it tucked neatly in his arm, sheltered in the folds of his cape.

Technically, _Magical X-Men_ was something Magneto knew he should hate with every fiber of his being not devoted to hating ignorant humans. It was animated for one. For two, it featured an unbelievably optimistic protagonist whose adventures were, in addition to being flagrantly unrealistic, a method of inculcating wrong-headed lessons about how everyone could love each other and protect the earth and make the world a better place. Finally, it exercised an unreasonable attraction that turned every fan of the _Magical X-Men_ into simpering, squealing teenagers. Only Magneto seemed immune.

On top of that, Professor X (the main character, sometimes Magneto skipped through the episodes to the scenes he was in) had a best friend, Metallic Man, who had started out as an enemy, but through some completely unnatural process, had become Professor X’s best friend and ally. The complete refusal to acknowledge reality, that sometimes people just wanted to take over the world and there was nothing wrong with that, irritated Magneto to no end.

Really, Magneto thought as he clutched his Professor X plushie to his body armor and glared at the impertinent adolescent standing between himself and the poster display, it was absolutely ridiculous. If he just so happened to have the complete series on DVD, a complete plushie team, the complete manga series, the trade paperback loaded into his e-reader for bedtime reading, a handful of doujinshi in the shoebox under his bed, a poster of Professor X on the ceiling, and two sets of action figures—one still in the boxes—it was only because he needed to keep an eye on mass media that stood in the way of his goal to take over the world. Magical X-Men was probably some highly-lucrative propaganda tool, used by cynical humans to manipulate the ever-growing mutant public. 

And if Magneto just so happened to frequent the fyeahmagicalxmen tumblr and the fiction archive on AO3, and occasionally contribute to them under the screenname MagsAndX5ever, it was to keep an eye on Professor X’s ever-growing army of fanatics and work out ways to create a fanatical following of his own. 

But really, it was all ridiculous. Too ridiculous to be borne, Magneto told himself as he growled out an order for the human behind the booth to give him the poster of Professor X and Mystique in their battle uniforms. Professor X didn’t even wear a helmet for safety, which allowed his brown hair to flop adorably—irritatingly—over his forehead.

Just as ridiculous was the furor over the mysterious creator of the _Magical X-Men_ , who had never to anyone's knowledge made a public appearance or openly acknowledged the work as his. Magneto had no idea who this "Francis Pembroke" person was, but whoever they were, Magneto very much wanted to meet them. Not to coo stupidly over their genius or ask if he could have their autograph, but to demand if they knew that they were setting mutant rights back two hundred years.

His cape swirling, Magneto collected his poster and turned to stalk back to his hotel where he could admire—examine—scowl ominously at—his purchases. He almost stalked over a brown-haired young man in a wheelchair, who smiled winningly at him and murmured his apologies. Magneto responded distractedly, already looking forward to reading the next installment of Magical X-Men: The Case of the Banshee.

* * *

Ideologically flawed as the _Magical X-Men_ 's premises might be, Magneto couldn't deny that Francis Pembroke had a certain mastery of storytelling. Not even Magneto's well-honed and ruthless self-discipline had been enough to tear him away from _The Case of the Banshee_ before the end. The expression on Angel Wings's face when she had reported that the Ice Queen had taken Banshee captive would haunt Magneto until the next issue.

As a result, he had missed the hour he had appointed for writing (fourteen to fifteen-hundred every afternoon) and needed to hurry to make up. Ever since he had dispensed with the completely unnecessary services of his beta reader, who had exhausted her usefulness with the advice that he switch Magneto for Metallic Man, the process of posting his fiction was much faster and far more rewarding. He wondered what his beta reader would say if she knew that Magneto wrote the entire fic using Magneto and then ran find-and-replace to substitute Metallic Man. He hoped it would be a lot of strangled, impotent cursing.

Making a mental note to reread _The Case of the Banshee_ as soon as possible, Magneto closed the comic and opened his laptop. After pulling up the relevant document, he began to type quickly.

> "Oh, Professor X!" Metallic Man sighed as he finished turning the battleships into useless hunks of solid, sinkable iron. His changeable aquamarine eyes glittered with tears. "I knew you and I were destined to be together like this. Together, we can do anything." 
> 
> "I was a fool to resist you," Professor X said into Metallic Man’s broad, muscled chest. He allowed Metallic Man to pull him closer and run his fingers through his soft brown hair. "I should have realized the humans always intended to betray us. From now on, I’ll devote myself to your cause—to our cause."
> 
> "And to me," Metallic Man murmured. "To me."

Magneto nodded with satisfaction and pressed the POST button. A moment later, MagsAndX5ever’s "Metal Hearts Can’t Be Broken" (appropriately tagged with ‘fix-it,’ although Magneto grumbled at the necessity of the ‘canon AU’ tag) popped up on the archive.

To distract himself from watching for his hit count and any comments from idiots who didn’t like non-canon-compliant fics, Magneto closed his laptop and made his way downstairs to the Starbucks in the hotel lobby. On the way, he devoted himself to wondering irritably how it was that supposedly rabid fans all flatly refused to read his work when he had labeled it ‘Professor X/OMC,’ but the second he changed "Erik Layhensharr Ironheart’ to ‘Metallic Man’ or ‘Max Eisenhardt,’ people were banging down the doors either to gush or rant. Honestly, people had no love for original characters who were clearly vastly superior to most of what the canon had on offer. At least, Magneto thought with some gratification, people would whine impotently about his habit of turning Professor X "to the dark side," to which Magneto always responded "this is why fanfic exists, to explore the possibilities canon refuses to." That usually shut them up.

Speaking of shutting up, Magneto seriously considered using the metal napkin holders to knock half the Starbucks into unconsciousness. Nearly every fan not currently at the convention was here, clogging up the tables with their swag and the air with their nattering. As he waited for the barista to remake his venti soy latte (half whip, extra shot of espresso, _very_ small squirt of peppermint), Magneto thought about finding a corner table and looming over it until its occupants got the hint and left.

Unfortunately, a vaguely familiar-looking young man was waving to him and pointing emphatically to the empty chair at his table. For a moment, Magneto pretended that he hadn’t seen, but the young man’s "You can share with me, if you’d like!" robbed him of the excuse of ignorance.

Clutching his new latte, Magneto reluctantly made his way over, keeping an eye out to make sure no one stepped on his cape or tried to trap it under a chair leg. He deposited his latte on the table and himself in the chair opposite the young man.

"It’s quite busy, isn’t it?" the young man said, an observation whose inanity was equaled only by the cheerfulness with which it was delivered.

"That’s one word for it," Magneto said. He sipped his latte and regretted not bringing down his iPod or _Case of the Banshee_ , or anything to make it clear he did not wish to engage in conversation. He hadn’t, and so that left him to nurse his coffee and surreptitiously study the young man.

He was, Magneto realized, the same person he’d almost flattened earlier, the one in the wheelchair (he saw the other chair had been given to an overcrowded table so three, rather than two, teenagers could sit at it). He had the sort of absurdly young face Magneto associated with the terminally naive or the perpetual graduate student. And, Magneto saw, he was doodling in a sketchbook, a little portrait of Professor X and Mystique with a huge, happy-looking heart behind them.

"Are you here for the convention?" the young man asked.

"No! That is, no." Magneto thought quickly. "A business conference."

"Oh, I’m here for the convention," the young man said. "I don’t really participate, but I do enjoy seeing everyone come to enjoy themselves. It’s lovely, isn’t it, when people can bond over common enthusiasms?"

Magneto made a noncommittal noise. "It certainly seems to be very… popular. I’ve seen more _Magical X-Men_ merchandise in the past five minutes than in my entire life. I wonder how he does it, the man who created them."

"Oh, I’m sure luck was a big part of it." The young man, god help Magneto, blushed, going pink in the cheeks just like Professor X did in some of the naughtier doujinshi Magneto owned. "And perhaps people like the message he sends."

 _Or they like how Professor X and Metallic Man look in their uniforms,_ Magneto thought. Clearly the young man had not seen the extremely explicit fanart on the MetalX tumblr.

Across the table, the young man was grinning down at his sketchpad, his pencil pausing every now and then so he could clear his hair away from his eyes.

"Are you an artist?" Magneto asked.

"Of a sort." A pencil-smudged hand was extended to him. "I’m Charles."

"Magneto," Magneto said, and somewhat to his surprise, found himself accepting the handshake.

"It’s quite lovely to meet you," Charles said. "Maybe you should look about the convention, if your… work ever lets you get away from it. I hear that the _Magical X-Men_ ’s creator may be making an appearance at the comic’s panel tomorrow."

"Really?" No way, no way, no _way_ , Magneto hadn’t even heard of this. The entire fandom had resigned itself, once again, to Francis Pembroke refusing to attend ComicCon. Months of febrile speculation that this could be _the year_ had ended when the panel for _Magical X-Men_ had been announced, and no one saw Francis Pembroke’s name anywhere.

"Maybe," Charles said, his blue eyes twinkling. "Do you need a day pass?"

"I’m sure I can get one," Magneto lied. In fact, he had a Titanium Access Pass, which Emma had bestirred herself to get for him. "Thank you, though."

"Not a problem," Charles said. He tucked his sketchpad and pencil into a tote hanging off the arm of his chair. "It was lovely to meet you, Magneto."

"Likewise," Magneto said, only half-hearing the words and not really acknowledging Charles as he unlocked his wheelchair and rolled away.

Francis Pembroke here! Tomorrow! He had to get back to his laptop and see what the fandom was saying.

And, of course, check his hit count.

* * *

After hours of devoted searching, Magneto found nothing concerning Francis Pembroke’s appearance at the convention on the _Magical X-Men_ official site, nor anything on the more heavily-trafficked fansites. He considered posting a question to fyeahmagicalxmen, if only to enjoy the numerous accusations of trollery and tearfully hopeful exclamations that speculations on sightings of Francis Pembroke inevitably engendered. Really, Magneto thought with a disdainful curl of his lip, fandom was so depressingly predictable.

If only he could find a way to harness that predictability! He clenched a powerful fist and had to restrain himself from venting his frustrations on his laptop. A light fixture in the neighboring room crumpled in on itself, accompanied by the startled shriek of the room’s occupant. After allowing himself a small flicker of satisfaction, Magneto considered the possibility of forcing Emma to be useful and tracking down Francis Pembroke psychically for the purposes of abducting him and compelling the Magical X-Men fandom to do his will if they ever wanted to see their beloved creator alive again.

"That would turn them against you for sure, sugar," Emma said when he called her up to propose this course of action. "Now, are we going to try to take over the world some time this month, or is there another convention you want to go to? I need to book my next massage appointment and Lars’s schedule fills up fast."

Magneto snarled at her and hung up. He considered working on the sequel to "Metal Hearts Can’t Be Broken," which would be devoted to his—Metallic Man’s—and Professor X’s inevitable and satisfying conquest of the world (in between inevitable and satisfying bouts of sex), but a rumble from his stomach reminded him of far more prosaic matters.

As much as he loathed having to immerse himself in the insanity of the convention again, and even worse being forced to wait in line for a table because restaurant hostesses refused to be impressed by his looming, intimidating presence, Magneto left his room to find something to eat. Room service was right out, the food guaranteed to be cold and disappointing, and there was something undignified about eating cold take-out pizza and getting crumbs in his cape.

Magneto drew himself up and put on his most fearsome scowl as he pushed his way out into the busy streets. Every restaurant was already full, even at five-thirty, some with queues of impatient people crowded outside their doors. With each establishment he passed, Magneto’s scowl deepened.

"Oh, Magneto!" cried a damnably familiar voice.

It was Charles, parked at an outdoor table for three, a mostly-empty tumbler of whiskey in front of him and a plate of some demolished appetizer. He had his sketchbook with him, a smear in the corners as if perhaps Charles had failed to wipe his fingers before touching the page. Magneto hesitated, weighing his desire not to talk to Charles against his desire to eat, and headed over.

"We somehow keep meeting like this," Charles said with a twinkle in his really rather blue eyes. "Would you like a seat?"

Magneto sat. A waiter materialized at his elbow and handed him a menu, which Magneto accepted wordlessly.

"I hope your conference was enjoyable," Charles said into the silence. His lips, Magneto saw, were quite red and very much given to smiling. At the moment the smile seemed to be very much at Magneto’s expense.

"Enjoyable is not the word I’d use," Magneto said. To get away from Charles’s scrutiny—no, to expedite the process of acquiring food, he had not come out here to be social—he studied the menu. It dripped with declarations of "locally-grown" and "free trade" ingredients and words that probably did not actually exist outside of gastronomy. He frowned. Pretentious restaurant-speak would be banned under his regime, Magneto decided. Charles, however, probably didn’t want to hear about that, so instead Magneto said, "Are you, er, enjoying it? The convention?"

Charles bubbled. "Oh, immensely. It’s so lovely, seeing people brought together like this. It gives me hope that one day, with work, we’ll be able to acknowledge that our differences are a source of strength, not fear."

There were many things Magneto wanted to say to this, chief among them _You have drunk the Kool-Aid, haven’t you?_ How someone could take the lessons of a comic book-turned-movie-turned-novels-turned-toys seriously, he had no idea. Maybe, Magneto thought, he should develop a comic book of his own. He could kidnap Francis Pembroke and make him draw it, and then his fans would have to acknowledge the power and rightness of Magneto’s vision.

Across the table, Charles was laughing softly, and smothering it badly by burying his face in his whiskey glass.

"What?" Magneto bristled.

"Oh, nothing," Charles said around a very broad smile. "It’s just… you’re quite intense my friend."

"I don’t know how to be anything else," Magneto said, unsure if he should take that as a compliment.

"I know," Charles said. He set his glass down and fixed Magneto with a look far more serious than anything Magneto had seen on him thus far. "I’ve followed your career, you know."

"You have?" Magneto said, and preened a little.

"I’ve always thought there was far more to you than shouting at humans and threatening to throw the Eiffel Tower into the English Channel," Charles said. Magneto stopped preening. "Why be a supervillain when there’s so much good you can do with your abilities?"

" _Supervillain_ is a word used by ignorant humans," Magneto snapped. "I am not villainous, I’m a necessary corrective to centuries of misplaced human arrogance. And you, my friend," Magneto had to resist the impulse to perform the quotation-marks gesture, "have been fooled by a comic book of all things. Perhaps you should read actual books."

"Oh, I do. Quite a few of them." Gratifyingly, Charles looked quite ruffled, sitting straight and indignant in his chair, his eyes blue fire and his cheeks flushed. "If you want to participate in a debate right now, perhaps you could attack my actual views instead of my reading material?"

Acutely aware that the last thing he’d read had been a Metallic Man/Professor X fic in which Professor X had come down with a cold and needed Metallic Man to take care of him, Magneto followed Charles’s suggestion. And, under the influence of a pleasant, cool evening—and, once the waiter arrived, a plate of bruschetta and glass of wine—he found he didn’t really want to argue.

"Are you an artist in real life?" he asked, once he had, with appropriate dignity, eaten a slice of bruschetta and refrained from swallowing half his wine.

"Of sorts," Charles said. The secretive glint in his eye was back. It reminded Magneto of the expression on Professor X’s face in the anime whenever he was coming up with a cunning plan to help them defeat the Hellfire Club.

In fact, Charles looked… well, rather like Professor X when he wasn’t in his battle uniform, right down to the undone collar of his dress shirt and the slightly-oversized cardigan. A cosplayer, then, not that such a costume would be difficult to assemble.

"What are you working on?" Magneto asked after another slice of bruschetta.

"Just some sketches." Charles handed over his sketchbook and, for a wonder, actually looked embarrassed and uncertain. "Some ideas I was playing with."

The page had Professor X on it, roughed out in a style that was remarkably similar to Francis Pembroke’s. Professor X wore his off-duty clothes, the trademark sweater and khakis that were mentioned in virtually every description of Professor X in fandom (unless it was slutty Professor X and then he was in leather or jeans falling off his hips… Magneto had to stop thinking about that). His hair flopped in precisely the same way.

Only he was in a wheelchair.

"Why is he…?" Magneto began, before stopping himself.

"Well, as much as Francis Pembroke has done for mutant visibility, it feels like all fans should have a character they can relate to. I mean, you can relate to Metallic Man, correct?"

It was, in fact, a source of no little pride that Metallic Man’s mutation so closely echoed Erik’s own. Of course, Metallic Man could only transmute other objects into metal rather than control the elemental force of electromagnetism itself, but still… metal.

"And I’m sure telepaths can relate to Professor X, and shapeshifters to Mystique," Charles continued with that same captivating earnestness, "and humans who are allies can understand how hard it is for Agent MacTaggert to help and support her friends. But maybe some of us," he gestured to his wheelchair, "need other things to relate to. Wouldn’t it be nice if Francis Pembroke had a character who wasn’t fully able-bodied but was still amazing and determined?"

"I suppose," Magneto said. "It would never happen, though."

"No," Charles said, with such sadness Magneto wanted to take the words back, or say it _should_ happen, and would, in a just world. "I suppose you’re right."

"Of course," Magneto added, "if Francis Pembroke did decide to do that, we—that is, his fans ought to support him."

"Really?" A bit of humor warmed the sadness as Charles looked up at him. "Do you think they would?"

Magneto considered saying that he would personally guarantee it, if he had to hunt down every last fan himself. Instead, he said, "If they don’t, I’m sure they would be missing out on a good storyline, and they would regret it."

Charles relaxed a little. "Oh, that’s lovely to hear, my friend. We mutants are so used to thinking of ourselves as superpowered or extra-abled that we aren’t comfortable with talking about disability. If anything, you know, ever since my accident, my telepathy has gotten rather stronger."

"You’re a telepath?" Magneto had assumed Charles possessed some kind of mutation, as a good number of _Magical X-Men_ fans were mutants, but beyond an excessively cheerful, flirty demeanor and an Oxbridge accent, Magneto hadn’t been able to guess what it was.

"If you take off your helmet, I promise I won’t read your mind for any nefarious plans," Charles said with a grin. His blue eyes really were infuriating, Magneto decided, and gave thanks for the protection of his helmet.

Time to duck the subject; the last thing Charles needed to know was that Magneto had a Professor X body pillow in his top-secret safe at home. "From what I understand, your favorite character makes those promises more often than not." Magneto gestured to Charles’s sketchpad. "And, not that I’ve read much, but even his best friend doesn’t seem to trust him entirely. The metal-y one, I mean. Why," Magneto thought briefly of all the times he’d wondered why Metallic Man had just abandoned his convictions to follow after Professor X like a lapdog, "why do you think he goes with Professor X?"

"I like to think he needed friends more than he needed enemies," Charles said earnestly. "It’s why he gives up the helmet, isn’t it?"

In the original comics series, of course, Metallic Man had abandoned his helmet, which he had taken from the evil sorcerer Schmidt at the end of _MXM_ #4. That was a cliffhanger Magneto had missed, because he had naturally ignored the series until he learned that it was a thinly-veiled allegory for mutant rights. (As far as fandom was concerned, MagsAndX5ever had been reading since the beginning.) _MXM_ #5 had, from Magneto’s point of view, been a bit tedious and the end had decidedly not gone the way he had wanted, with Metallic Man agreeing to try things Professor X’s way and not using his magic to sink the Miracan and Ryslan armadas.

The last panel—Magneto knew the page by heart—had Schmidt's helmet abandoned in the sand as Metallic Man and Professor X walked away together.

It was, of course, a superlatively stupid move. The helmet blocked Spirit Magic, the specific kind of magic Professor X used. Only a tactical idiot would leave it behind. Francis Pembroke had returned to the problem in _MXM_ #6, revealing—ret-conning, really—that Angel had flown back using her Sky-Morph magic and retrieved it before the Hellfire Club could put it to some nefarious use.

"I suppose," Magneto said without conviction. It was rare that he said things without conviction.

"Do supervillains—excuse me, necessary correctives—have friends?" Charles asked. "Are you allowed?"

"I keep my enemies closer," Magneto said. Really, Emma, Azazel, and Janos all counted more as frenemies, in the parlance of today’s youth, just as likely to disobey him as leap to heed his most trifling whim. It was not precisely a lonely life, although Magneto deliberately did not think about how he had connected (ridiculous as the word was) with complete strangers on the Internet more than the three people who shared his top-secret hideout.

"That’s a pity," Charles said, sounding as if he really meant it. His blue eyes went alluringly, sadly liquid. "Everyone needs friends."

That was, more or less, what Professor X had said to Metallic Man in MXM #2, when Metallic Man had been on the verge of leaving, believing that his Metal Magic would be enough to bring down Schmidt, and then Professor X had found him outside the gates of the Siayai Keep and said _Schmidt has friends, you could do with some_ , and Metallic Man had stayed.

In Magneto’s headcanon, Metallic Man stayed only out of a sense of tactical advantage and out of the hope that he would be able to convince Professor X he was wrong about the humans who hated and feared magic users. And, of course, if things had turned out the way they ought, Metallic Man’s rationality and evidence would have won the day.

But it didn’t. And now Metallic Man helped run a school where new magic users could go to learn about their powers, and every now and then he would help save the day or solve a mystery that taught people the value of friendship and accepting differences and taking care of the planet.

Somehow, sitting here on a pleasant late-spring night with Charles, their dinners newly arrived along with fresh drinks, canon seemed slightly less preposterous than it had before.

They ate in silence, aside from Magneto using his abilities and a convenient spoon to airlift some pasta from Charles’s plate. Charles laughed and sneaked the last bruschetta.

"This was a nice evening," Magneto said between the dessert and the check. He started, realizing that he couldn’t recall the last time he had used the word ‘nice.’ People on the archive flailed helplessly when he left less-critical-than-usual feedback on their stories. Nice. God help him. "I need to get going," he continued before he could do something as foolish as invite Charles back to his room or out for a midnight stroll or something similarly soppy. "My conference tomorrow. I have to be up early."

"Of course," Charles said, warm but with a tinge of regret that gratified Magneto immensely. "It was lovely talking to you."

"Likewise," Magneto said, and fled before the waiter arrived with the bill.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone for the wonderful feedback!
> 
> Very extra-special thanks are due to, of course, [palalife](http://palalife.tumblr.com/), whose wonderful Magneto-goes-to-a-con art got this all started, and to the awesome people of #xmentales who aided and abetted Magneto's melodrama. [professor](http://professorofeljay.tumblr.com/) gave me very many good ideas and hilarious images that I have tried my best, given my limited capacities, to include. And last but definitely not least, to [keire-ke](http://keire-ke.tumblr.com/) are owed The Badger and the most important symbolic element of this piece, the conquering cape.
> 
> Also, I must thank fandom, without whom none of this (obviously) would have been possible.
> 
> (One more thing: I edited the first chapter a little bit for some relevant setting details.)
> 
> Now, on with the melodrama!

It required all his years of training and self-discipline for Magneto to fall asleep that night.

If anyone were so foolhardy as to watch Magneto toss and turn in search of slumber, they might think the helmet had something to do with it. Because the only person who would dare enter Magneto's private sanctum would be an idiot, they would also be wrong. Magneto had learned to sleep with his helmet on, ever-vigilant as he was for telepathic attacks when away from the safety of his evil lair.

As he hovered on the edge of tipping over into unconsciousness, Magneto wondered what the odds were of Francis Pembroke really showing up, and what he would do if Francis Pembroke strode onto the stage during the _Magical X-Men_ panel. Then he wondered if he would see Charles tomorrow.

Strangely, the thought of Charles, and the memory of him stealing bruschetta of Magneto's plate with pencil-smudged fingers, pulled him away from the brink and back into consciousness.

"What," Magneto demanded of the ceiling, "is the meaning of this?"

The ceiling, curse its unhelpful blankness, did not reply. Magneto scowled at it.

In his evil lair, he would at least have Professor X's smiling, cheerful face gazing back down on him, soothingly reminding him that his was the correct path, the path of righteousness, and if Francis Pembroke did not show up tomorrow Magneto would still have his quest to keep him going until the convention next month in Chicago. And doubtless Professor X would also have some words for Magneto about Charles.

 _He could be your friend_ , Professor X might say, because everyone was Professor X's friend. Including that wretched scruffy excuse for an amnesiac The Badger. Magneto scowled even more fiercely. The Badger had been in one scene, one scene, and already people were... No. He was not going to think about this. Magneto rolled over to glare at the window instead.

Of course, he'd only wondered if he'd run into Charles because he would have to come up with a decent cover story. Curiosity, Magneto decided. Charles's description of the convention had sounded intriguing, and Magneto's conference had... gotten out early. Or wouldn't be starting until later, given the _Magical X-Men_ panel was at eleven.

Now that the Charles problem was solved... People were already _shipping_ Professor X and the Badger. Magneto slammed a powerful fist into his pillow. He refused to go down with his ship, because he fully intended to sink the USS Professor X/Badger and drop bombs and torpedoes on it.

"I vow it," he said to the alarm clock. "I will conquer the publishing industry before I allow that ship to be _built_."

Magneto refused to think about that anymore, so he thought about Charles instead. He thought about Charles's very earnest face and blue eyes, and the absent smile on his face when he would pick up his pencil to add a few quick details to his drawing. In his mind's eye, Magneto saw him pushing his wheelchair determinedly through the crowd packed outside the auditorium for the _MXM_ panel, his gaze falling on Magneto's tall, majestic form and that lovely smile gracing his red, red lips, a smile for Magneto and Magneto alone....

* * *

He awoke the next morning to a headache where the helmet had dug into his forehead and in desperate need of caffeine. On most days this would send the lackeys fleeing in terror and send the French officials scrambling for an emergency replacement Eiffel Tower (they always had a few on hand now), but today, Magneto found himself feeling energized.

It was the energy of _purpose._ He was going to meet Francis Pembroke today.

After his ablutions and ritual coffee, Magneto used his powers to polish up his body armor and the helmet to a high sheen. After checking to be sure he had buffed out all the flaws, he donned what he considered the _pièce de résistance._

The conquering cape.

It was the pinnacle of fabric, more than a mere accessory. It shone a rich, deep purple, the glitter worked into the fabric brilliant even in the terrible light of the hotel room. Purple, of course, was the color of royalty, and the satin the most expensive Magneto had been able to acquire. It had taken Magneto quite some time to source fabric worthy of the magnificence of his conquering cape, but it was worth every penny, even if it was a bitch to keep clean--it tended to get caught in doorways and under chair legs--and thus meant he could only wear it on occasions when conquering seemed likely.

(Magneto was convinced the drycleaners were overcharging him. They would most certainly _not_ be getting the imperial drycleaning contract under the new mutant world order.)

Carefully Magneto settled the cape on his shoulders and fastened it to his armor. He checked the drape of the fabric in the mirror, straightening out a few kinks could diminish the fluid sweep of the cape as it billowed in the wind behind him.

Satisfied with his appearance, Magneto nodded to his reflection and adjured it to go forth and conquer, in the name of mutants and the name of justice.

Then, collecting his Titanium Level Access Pass, he swept dramatically out the door, heading for the elevator and Francis Pembroke.

* * *

Hyperventilating humans packed the hallway outside the auditorium. Thanks to his Titanium Level Access Pass and his own naturally intimidating presence – and a few judiciously applied magnetic pushes and pulls to keep people from stepping on his cape – Magneto was able to forge a path through the chaos and acquire his seat five rows back from the stage. He ignored the simpering overtures of the girl next to him, who wanted to know where he had gotten the fabric for his cape, although he did deign to nod in acknowledgment when she gushed over his helmet, complimenting him on how it almost looked _real_.

"It is real," Magneto growled under his breath. He would have set her straight, but Las Vegas was Shaw's turf and the last thing Magneto needed to deal with was Shaw's obnoxious posturing and marking his territory by, say, blasting the convention hotel into smithereens. Not that Magneto would have been sorry to see it go – the carpet alone was evidence of human inferiority – but Shaw's presence would doubtless endanger Francis Pembroke, or Charles, and Magneto refused to allow that to happen.

He bit his tongue and waited out the fangirl's gushing. Eventually she turned away to torment someone else, and Erik devoted himself to studying the program. He had already memorized it, of course, but it never hurt to confirm details.

A couple of the voice actors for the animated series would be in and Raven Darkholme, the inker on the original comics series, although she never answered any questions about Francis Pembroke's appearance or personal life. The lead writer for the _Magical X-Men_ full-length live-action feature would be in attendance, as well as a few of the cast members. Disinterestedly, Magneto flicked through the bits of information provided to him. The one playing Metallic Man had mostly been in movies that seemed to involve large amounts of blood, death, or madness, while the one playing Professor X seemed to have a predilection for movies in which his character ended up sad or dead. Also very many period pieces, Magneto noticed with a disdainful sniff. He made a note to look into illegal downloads, as he refused to miss out on any potential addition to the canon, but he was certainly not going to cave to the extortionate demands of human movie theaters to see the thing.

A human behind him interrupted his speculations with a demand for Magneto to take off his helmet. Magneto swiveled around to ask the impertinent baseline if he knew whom he was addressing.

"Yeah, your weird Magneto cosplay outfit is amazing," the human said, "but seriously, I can't see the stage."

"Oh, hello there, Magneto."

Charles's voice startled him from his contemplation of how to best impress on the human the steep consequences to stupidity. Charles had parked himself in the aisle next to Magneto, despite there being no obvious indicator on his person that he was allowed in the Titanium Level Access area. The plebeians with inferior credentials – Gold, Silver, and whatever the cheap seats were (Magneto hadn't even looked) – were all barricaded away from the chosen few by satin ropes and bored-looking bouncers.

Magneto settled for directing a menacing scowl at the young man and tightening the watch on his wrist. Charles made an exasperated noise.

"You ran off before the waiter came back with our check last night," Charles said, with enough of a tease that Magneto had to bite back the reflexive _I had an emergency_. "The gentlemanly thing to do would be to ask me how much was your share, or offer to take me out to make up for it."

"I left my wallet in my hotel room," Magneto said after spending a few seconds hung up on the possibility of a date with Charles. He hadn't been on a proper date since… well, since quite a long time; his crusade consumed his life, it was his first love and it would be, Magneto had vowed, his last. The wallet excuse, at least, had the virtue of being true; he never carried identification with him, and his uniform had no space in which to store anything.

"I didn't think I'd see you here," Charles said after a moment. He was smiling, as always, as if deeply amused by something and refusing to share it.

"Your description sounded vaguely interesting," Magneto said with as much disinterestedness as he could muster. "So I acquired a pass and decided to see for myself."

"I hope you enjoy it," Charles said. He sank back into his wheelchair a bit, his hands folded in his lap.

Magneto tore his attention away from the stage – Francis Pembroke might appear literally at any moment; he needed to be vigilant – and looked at Charles more closely.

Charles did look rather peaked, and very pale underneath his freckles. The sketchbook, curiously, was not in evidence. He had on his Professor X cosplay outfit again, accurate in every detail right down to how his heavy dark sweater looked as worn-soft as Erik always imagined it would be if that sweater had existed in real life. Sternly, Magneto squashed the concern attempting to flicker into life deep within his breast; he was here for Francis Pembroke, not an overly enthusiastic, excessively cheerful fan artist.

"Are you feeling well, Charles?" he asked.

"Oh, it's just so many people," Charles said. He touched his forehead and licked his lips. "I' m not used to this much excitement. My life is rather quieter."

Magneto thought of his inner sanctum, buried in the heart of his lair. It was quiet there, even if Charles might find himself annoyed by the decidedly sub-par thought processes of his lackeys. 

"Perhaps you should go rest," Magneto suggested. "I'm sure it'll just be more fans shrieking and collapsing in hysterics." His heart fluttered at the thought that Francis Pembroke might be here – could, in fact, be on the other side of the curtain partition. He should tear down the metal poles supporting the drapes.

"No, I'll be fine." As if to prove it, Charles squared his shoulders and straightened up in his chair. "I always forget how much work it is to shield in situations like this. People think very… emphatically when they're excited or looking forward to something."

"Like Francis Pembroke?" Magneto asked. Charles _had_ hinted, after all. Although, judging from some of their conversation last night, Charles quite likely hid something diabolical under that won't-melt-any-butter face of his.

"Maybe," was all Charles said before the house music went silent and the audience burst into hysterical catcalls and whoops.

"Good grief," Magneto said, allowing himself three dignified claps. Next to him, Charles winced again but immediately started clapping. "If people got this excited about advancing the interests of the next step of human evolution," he grumbled, "we would be in much better shape."

"Not everyone can be an activist all the time," Charles said reprovingly, but still with a smile Magneto was in serious danger of finding attractive. "Now hush."

Magneto waited impatiently for the emcee to finish introductions (as if anyone there actually needed introductions), and then another unnecessarily long time for the shrill contributions from the audience to finish as the two lead actors stepped out into the stage. At least the actor playing Metallic Man had an appropriately frightening-looking smile, Magneto decided, if not quite as frightening as Magneto's own. He also looked as if he could carry off a cape with some panache, even if he could not hope to match Magneto. (Not having a conquering cape, how could he?) Perhaps the movie would not be a complete disaster.

Still, where _was_ Francis Pembroke? Magneto sent his powers searching behind the stage, hoping for some clue that might hint at the presence of Francis Pembroke on the other side of the curtains. He found nothing, and continued to find nothing as his impatience mounted and the question and answer portion of the panel began.

The actor playing Professor X was in the middle of some anecdote about golf carts with the audience laughing along, and every single word, every expression of merriment, began to grate intolerably. Behind him, the idiot human bitched about Magneto's helmet reflecting the flash off his camera. While Magneto stewed, Charles excused himself, pleading a headache and needing to go lie down, and his absence only made the lack of Francis Pembroke grate even more than it already did.

"Probably compensating for the fact he's not a real fan," the human grumbled, shoving at the back of Magneto's chair with a foot. Magneto gritted his teeth and set himself to listening to the inker not-answering questions about where the ideas for _Magical X-Men_ came from.

As he sat listening to one fan ask the Metallic Man wannabe if he would rather be a Great White shark or a Tiger shark, it occurred to Magneto that he had been going about this convention thing all wrong. For that matter, he had approached _fandom_ all wrong, and in specific, his plans to make the acquaintance of Francis Pembroke.

He had spent the past many months chasing around to different comics conventions, buying _Magical X-Men_ paraphernalia, listening to the artists and writers and actors talk about _Magical X-Men_ , listening to hundreds upon hundreds of people gushing about _Magical X-Men_ , and all in the hope that, at only one of those gatherings, Francis Pembroke would deign to grace him with his presence. Inevitably, that approach had resulted only in disappointment. 

Well, disappointment and a lot of _Magical X-Men_ gear. Magneto did not regret his purchases, or the numerous occasions he had been forced to ask Frost for the Brotherhood credit card to buy convention passes, but the disappointment… he was not used to disappointment.

And he was _Magneto_. Magneto, the Master of Magnetism! Did Magneto go groveling and scraping in the hopes of anyone, much less an _artist_ , favoring him with even a glimpse? No! Did Magneto chase around uselessly with the rest of the rabble on the slim chance that another might fulfill his desires! No, again! Did Magneto ever sit quietly and accept that any of those desires were not meant to be?

"Never!" Magneto shouted, standing up abruptly and cutting off the Metallic Man actor. Behind him, his metal folding chair crumpled.

"Hey!" the emcee said. His microphone squawked with feedback. "If you want to ask a question, you'll have to get in line, sir."

"I am Magneto!" Magneto boomed. "I don't wait in _line_." He crushed the emcee's microphone to emphasize his point. For good measure, he pulled the screws out of the impertinent fanboy's chair so it collapsed out from underneath him. "And I am most certainly not here to ask questions."

He levitated himself up and over the audience which, gratifyingly, had redirected its attention from the scruffy Metallic Man hopeful – the man would have to shave, Magneto thought irritably – and to the sight of Magneto hovering overhead. His conquering cape stirred in the breeze from the air conditioning.

"Sir!" the emcee shouted, his voice puny and really rather squeaky. "Sir, please."

"Your pleas are useless, human," Magneto said sternly. He pointed at the emcee, who shrank back against the table. The actors and other _Magical X-Men_ panelists had, very sensibly, begun to edge behind the curtain, all except for the blond inker, who stood with her hands on her hips, glaring furiously up at him and saying something about how what Magneto was doing went against the spirit of the _Magical X-Men_.

Too bad, Magneto thought. Not seeing Francis Pembroke was never an option.

"Hear me!" He would _have_ to work on some way to amplify his voice using his abilities; the acoustics in the convention center were terrible. "I am Magneto, the Master of Magnetism! I am the one who will usher in the brave new world in which mutants reign supreme! If you meet my demands, your insignificant lives will be spared, but if you do _not_ …" Magneto searched for a credible threat to deliver.

"If you do not," he concluded, "the Eiffel Tower at Paris Las Vegas will be destroyed." To start with. Then he would take care of clogging up the fountain at the Bellagio.

"What… what is it you want, precisely?" the emcee asked timidly from behind the table.

"Francis Pembroke!" Magneto boomed. "You will deliver him to me in one hour, or your _precious_ phony Eiffel Tower will finish up at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Do you understand?" The emcee nodded and whimpered. "Good. Do not fail me."

With that, he used his abilities to peel a hole in the convention auditorium roof and zoomed up and out, leaving the panicked, disbelieving cries of fandom far behind. Beneath him, hundreds of humans streamed out onto the Strip, some of them screaming and the rest of them aiming phones and cameras at him. Magneto made for the beacon of the ersatz Eiffel Tower, making a mental note to crush the gaudy _Paris_ sign positioned conspicuously in front of it.

Tourists shuffling between casinos stopped to peer up into the winter Nevada sun to see him, silhouetted as he hovered in front of the Eiffel Tower. Fortunately a good breeze had come up so Magneto's cape billowed about him impressively. Gasps and cries drifted up from the gathering crowd, a commotion to which the rumble of a tour bus added itself. People pointed and shouted, and a few of them moved to make way for a news truck.

Well, Magneto would give them something to film! He would give them something for posterity! If only because he had approximately fifty-five minutes to kill before delivering the Eiffel Tower to Arizona.

He allowed himself to drift slightly lower – still careful to float aggressively, frame by the arches of the tower – and prepared himself to deliver the abridged version of his manifesto.

"Mutants and humans of Las Vegas!" he began, raising his hands and spreading his fingers as if to subdue the crowd to silence. The ruckus from below ceased. "I, Magneto, the Master of Magnetism, am here today – "

"Magneto!" called a damnably and already familiar voice. "Magneto!"

It was Charles, bumping awkwardly off the lift of the tour bus and knocking people out of the way with his wheelchair. The crowd made a vexed noise and someone yelped as Charles must have flattened their foot rolling over it. Raven Darkholme trailed behind him, elbowing people who tried to get between herself and Charles. Magneto was at a loss to explain her presence.

"Magneto!" Charles shouted. He had his head tilted back so his hair flopped away from his face and his eyes squinched shut as he frowned up into the sun, which was haloing Magneto impressively and dramatically. "Magneto, what on _earth_ are you doing?"

"The definition of madness is repeating the same sequence of actions while expecting a different result," Magneto replied. "This time I intend to get what I want. Charles, it's best that you leave. I have no desire to see you hurt." Doubtless more hysterical humans in police cars and fire trucks would show up, and some of those hysterical humans would have weapons. "If the human authorities deliver Francis Pembroke to me, there will be no need for bloodshed. But if they don't…" Magneto imagined Charles's wheelchair overturned and Charles lying helpless in the crush and pandemonium of panicking bodies. Icy fear gripped his heart.

"Please," Magneto refused to beg, "Charles, stand aside."

"No!" Charles shouted, pushing himself across the pavement until he was directly beneath Magneto's shadow. "I'm – oh, for god's sake, _I'm_ Francis Pembroke!"

Magneto lost a few feet of altitude in his shock. What was Charles _playing_ at? Having some talent at drawing and wearing clothes nearly identical to Professor X and espousing the _Magical X-Men_ 's philosophy regarding human-mutant relations hardly made him Francis Pembroke. "Please, Charles," Magneto said in a tone he hoped was both commanding and affectionate, "your concern for the humans is… _touching_ if woefully misguided. Do not make the situation any worse for yourself, or them."

"I _am_ Francis Pembroke, you idiot!" Charles seethed. "Now, come down here or levitate me or _something_ so I don't have to shout and we can talk about this like rational people."

The crowd had started to grow and press closer around Charles. Raven Darkholme was using her elbows very effectively, but it was only a matter of time before the interest stoked by the high-pitched cries of "Francis Pembroke?!" and "Francis Pembroke is here _oh my god_!" overwhelmed her. With a gesture, Magneto lifted Charles and his wheelchair up into the air and safety, accompanied by gasps and a police officer's ill-advised reach for a service weapon, to which Magneto put a swift and effective end.

"Now," Magneto said ominously to Charles, who persisted in looking more annoyed than cowed, "you have fifty-one minutes to explain yourself before I begin to rearrange Las Vegas landmarks."

Charles rolled his eyes, tugging his cardigan more closely around himself. He looked cold already; although the sun was bright, the air nearly a hundred and fifty feet up was brisk and breezy with the desert winter, tugging his hair this way and that. Magneto considered wrapping Charles in his cape, but from the look on Charles's face right now, stormy and indignant, he thought Charles would not welcome it.

"As I said," Charles snapped, "I'm Francis Pembroke."

"And, pray tell, did you arrive at the conclusion I'm likely to believe you?" Magneto demanded. "Are you in league with the humans?"

"No!" Charles's hands tightened on the armrests of his chair. Magneto suspected that the blush mantling Charles's freckled cheeks was not entirely from the cold. "If you would listen instead of _pontificating_ , I could tell you."

Magnanimously, Magneto forbore from pointing out that he did not pontificate, but merely gestured for Charles to continue. He scanned the crowd for threats, knowing the humans and their propensity for doing foolish things like aiming metal projectile weapons at him. Judging from the police cordoning off the Strip and one of them bustling around with a megaphone, they were preparing to do something they would regret.

"Eight years ago," Charles began, "I was in a very bad car accident. Hit and run. It was bad enough, in fact, to damage my spinal cord and paralyze me from the waist down. Permanently."

Well, that would explain the wheelchair, but not why Charles believed he was Francis Pembroke. Brain damage, perhaps? A crackling sound came from ground level. Magneto gestured to crush the megaphone of the police officer who was trying to interrupt them.

Charles looked down at where an officer was handing his colleague another megaphone and sighed, touching a finger to his temple in a gesture that was very much like the one used by Professor X when employing his telepathy. Of course, he could have picked that up from the comics as well. On the pavement beneath them, the police officers retreated to their car.

"While I was recovering, I began to draw." Charles laughed softly, with enough bitterness to suggest that here was a man who had tasted sorrow in life, much as Magneto had. "I'd always been rather artistic, but I needed something to do, something to escape from the hours of lying in bed or suffering through PT… So I created Professor X. He could do everything I couldn't do," Charles's voice shivered a little with wistfulness. "He could run around and have adventures and help save the world and make it a better place, while I was stuck in this."

The first issue of _Magical X-Men_ had come out six years ago. Magneto had a mint-condition copy of it, tucked in the securest corner of his most secure vault in his lair, right next to a signed copy of _MXM_ #1. So that fit with the timeline. Still, Magneto was used to duplicity, and even the most casual fan of the comic would know the publication history.

"Raven, my sister, is the model for Mystique," Charles continued, "and everyone on the team is modeled after someone I know. The Creature is my friend Hank McCoy, Adapter is Armando Muñoz, Agent MacTaggert is Moira, my best friend… Do I need to continue?"

These were claims that required verification; as soon as he returned to his lair he would force the lackeys into usefulness chasing them down. Irritably, Magneto wondered who the _friend_ was upon whom The Badger was based. 

In front of him, Charles shivered a little, tucking his hands into his sides for warmth. Touched despite himself, Magneto drew closer and attempted to corral his majestically-billowing cape enough to unfasten it and tuck it around Charles. As he looked down into Charles's large blue eyes, and tried to imagine enthusiastic, earnest Charles as Francis Pembroke, he began to think, quite suddenly, that it was possible.

_Everyone on the team is modeled after one of my friends._

"What about Metallic Man?" Magneto asked. Surely there wasn't another metallokinetic in Francis's – in Charles's – life.

"Oh." The delightful blush on Charles's cheeks was now one of embarrassment. Magneto found himself enchanted. Charles had two freckles on the bridge of his nose that were rather bolder than the others. "I… er, I should think that would be obvious. I modeled him after – "

"Magneto! Is it possible you have the temerity to trespass on _my_ territory?"

 

****

* * * suspenseful music * * *

"Shaw!" boomed Magneto. He whirled to confront the new threat, the _greatest_ threat, hi archenemy. Beneath them, the human tourists and convention-goers drew back with a gasp. The flurry of picture-taking redoubled. With a ferocious growl, Magneto darted around Charles so he was sheltered safely behind Magneto's body.

"I will not let any harm befall you," he promised Charles, although he did not dare to risk a glance over his shoulder. Perhaps he could see about reshaping his helmet to allow for better peripheral vision. "If Shaw so much as thinks about touching one hair on your head, I will wrap him up in his damned fake Eiffel Tower and drop him in the Pacific."

"Oh, you will?" Charles asked. Magneto felt a tugging sensation on his shoulders. Charles said, sounding aggrieved, "Your cape is very inconvenient. It keeps blowing in my face."

"I did not make my cape with an eye to your convenience," Magneto informed him. Shaw wore no metal, which presented some difficulty, and the hovercraft on which he rode appeared to be made out of plastics and resins. Damn it! Any missile Magneto launched at him would be useless, given Shaw's mutation. "Charles, I am going to send you to shelter, for your own protection."

"Charles?" Shaw said, voice full of oil and interest. "Do you have yourself a new pet now, Magneto? Shall I take him with me along with my helmet after I've defeated you and seen you delivered into the hands of the human authorities?"

"Over my dead body," Magneto snarled. The thought of Shaw anywhere _near_ Charles… Behind him, the fake Eiffel Tower creaked in its foundation. "I vow on the sanctity of my purpose, Shaw, if you should lay one finger on him, I will see you obliterated. I will grind you to a pulp beneath my heel."

"That's very nice," Charles said, "and very intimidating, but I believe I can take care of this?"

Shaw accelerated for them, the air around him beginning to glow as he gathered his power, that infuriating smirk on his face that said Magneto would have to dodge – that he would have to run – or calculate the odds of knocking Shaw from his hovercraft and dealing with the extra power the impact with the ground would give him. Magneto tensed, reaching out to gather whatever metal he could do himself (that was not Charles's wheelchair); perhaps he could disable the hovercraft… The policeman's second megaphone bounced off the hovercraft's carapace but did not deflect Shaw from his course.

This close, Magneto could hear Shaw's demented cackling.

Until he could not anymore.

Shaw braked the hovercraft, a blank expression coming over his normally smirking, supercilious face. He stared at the air over Magneto's shoulder as if abruptly arrested by something. Likely he was attempting to fool Magneto into taking his eyes off the threat Shaw posed; seconds ticked by and Magneto expected Shaw to point and ask "What on earth is that?!" but Shaw only stared vacantly and, on two occasions, nodded.

Magneto gathered himself to fling a rather more effective missile at Shaw's hovercraft – the idiotic Paris Experience balloon would do nicely – when Shaw put the hovercraft into reverse and flew away.

"Perhaps next time you will question the wisdom of challenging Magneto, the Master of Magnetism!" Magneto shouted after him, his chest swelling with pride.

"I'm afraid Shaw suddenly realized he might have left the oven on at home. He was very worried," Charles said. When Magneto pivoted to look at him, Charles had his fingers pressed to his temples, his gaze fixed on the retreating dot that was Shaw and his hovercraft.

"You did that?" Magneto asked, impressed despite himself. Although, if given the choice between further violence and settling the situation peacefully via his telepathy, Professor X had often opted for the latter, as attested by the third episode of the first season, "X-Men versus Hellfire," when Professor X had charged into a nest of Ryslan soldiers, telepathically knocking them unconscious so he could back up Metallic Man.

 _I can't leave him,_ Professor X had said to Agent MacTaggert. Magneto loved that scene.

"Of course," Charles said, rolling his eyes. "I may be in a wheelchair, but I'm not helpless."

"No," Magneto rumbled, "you are not."

He was, in fact, quite the opposite of helpless. He was magnificent, if a bit chilled-looking and wind-rumpled. Without thinking about it, Magneto drifted closer, unsnapping his cape so he could drape the warm, extravagant length of it around Charles's shoulders and tuck it about Charles's legs. For a wonder, Charles did not protest this treatment, although Magneto wished he might gather Charles up and hold Charles close to his chest, which Charles would admire for its width and strength. Then he and Charles could go far from here, away from the gawking humans to start a new life.

With Charles – Charles who was Francis Pembroke! Magneto's heart sang – he would have a powerful ally. _More_ than an ally; he would have a comrade, a colleague, a coeval, a – dare Magneto mention it – a _friend_. Magneto had never had a friend before; he had never needed them. Lackeys required far less work.

They could get married, Magneto decided. They _would_ get married, although not in Vegas. Charles deserved far more than waiting in line for an Elvis impersonator ordained by the Church of the Internet to read them their vows. Magneto frowned thunderously. He would put an end to these sham weddings, which would have the additional salutary effect of removing half the reason people went to Vegas. Shaw would rapidly collapse into irrelevance.

But first, he needed an answer, one Shaw had prevented him from obtaining earlier.

"So, who is the model for Metallic Man?" Magneto asked.

"Well," Charles was blushing again, his cheeks delightfully pink – or the cheek Magneto could see, for Charles had ducked his head into the folds of the conquering cape. Magneto gave thanks for the helmet again. "I… that is, I modeled him after _you_."

"Me?" Magneto stared, uncaring that his expression was now surely not menacing or authoritative.

"Yes. I read your _Mutantfesto_ back when you were first getting started, and I followed your exploits on the news." Magneto preened and adjusted his position relative to the wind so his conquering cape could billow more impressively before he remembered that he had given it to Charles. Charles continued, wearing an endearing expression that was rapidly threatening to make Magneto think soppy thoughts, "And I thought… I had, and still have, a great passion for mutant rights, and I always thought that, if we could work together, we could make such strides in securing mutants a safe place to live, where we're all accepted and cherished. But," Charles sighed, "with my accident, I thought you would dismiss me. And when I met you yesterday, it was as if my hopes might come true."

The stress on the _might_ caught at Magneto's heart. Charles was gazing at him so wistfully, nearly swallowed up by the thick folds of Magneto's cape, that Magneto had the impulse to do something undignified. Or, even better, clasp Charles to him, announce to the gawking audience below that Magneto had his prize and would depart, and he would leave the Eiffel Tower unscathed as proof Magneto, Master of Magnetism, could also be Magneto the Merciful.

" _Might_ come true?" He knelt so he could be at eye level with Charles. Was it too soon to call Charles 'beloved'? Perhaps he ought to settle for _liebling_ and hope Charles didn't speak German. "What do you mean?"

"Do you remember the end of the fourth issue of _Magical X-Men_?" Charles asked.

"Of course I do," Magneto said gruffly. Every fan worth his salt had the end of the fourth issue memorized: Professor X sprawled in the sand, immobilized by Schmidt's evil spells, begging Metallic Man to take off his helmet, and Metallic Man saying _I wish I could_ , and Professor X saying, _You can, my friend. Do you remember what I said to you when we met?_

 _You're not alone_. Both Professor X and Metallic Man repeated the words at the same instant. Then the last panel had shown Metallic Man's hand resting on the helmet, as if to secure it in place or fling it away.

"I always thought, if you could take that thing off," Charles frowned disapprovingly at Magneto's helmet, "we could be friends. We could talk properly."

Everyone knew the dilemma faced by Metallic Man in the beginning of _Magical X-Men_ #5: to keep his helmet, and thus the purity of his vision, and place himself at the beginning of a long road marked by solitude (Francis Pembroke's – Charles's – words)… or to open himself up to the possibility of a partnership, to the loss of that purpose. He had feared that Professor X would force him to stop his destruction of the human armada, but Professor X had only talked silently to him, pleading with him to understand.

 _It won't be loss_ , Professor X said when Metallic Man hesitated. Magneto knew the rest of the words by heart: _I'll be with you; you won't be alone_.

Metallic Man had learned the first and greatest lesson, one at which Magneto had repeatedly rolled his eyes even as he devoured the rest of the books. Now, looking at Charles's clear blue eyes and remembering those strong, capable fingers curled around a pencil, hair flopping as he bent over the sketchbook – and, not insignificantly, the promise of hundreds of thousands of fans waiting beneath them… Magneto steeled himself to put aside his distrust and vigilance.

"Charles," he said in his best smoky, rumbly, growly voice.

"Magneto?" Charles gazed at him, red mouth forming into an 'o' of surprise when Magneto's gloved hand settled atop his where his fingers rested against the edge of the helmet.

"Erik," Erik corrected, as he pulled his helmet off. "You can call me Erik."

"Hello, Erik," Charles murmured, eyes roving greedily over Erik's face, his chilled fingers resting on the curve of his jaw and the awareness of his emotions – pleasure, anticipation, excitement, _oh hello there, it's so very good to meet you_ – resting warm against the corner of Erik's mind.

* * *

**Epilogue/Montage**

After the confrontation with Shaw in front of the Paris Experience, Charles and Erik return to Erik's hotel room, but only after Charles assures Raven and Moira that Erik has decided to reform and he won't try to eat Charles alive. Although, Charles says to Erik, he would not mind it if Erik tried. Following the convention (and Erik repairing the hotel's roof), they return to New York, where Erik meets the rest of the Magical X-Men – who are mostly, bewilderingly, rather mundane, if superpowered, college students.

The _Magical X-Men_ franchise and fandom continues to thrive. While Charles occasionally has to restrain Erik from coming up with ways to use fandom as his own personal army, he has taken to social media to encourage his fans to take up a number of important causes, especially mutant rights. Charles refers to this as the "transformative power of fandom" when Erik pouts about Charles refusing to see all the possibilities presented by the blind adoration of hundreds of thousands of plushie-wielding fandomers. However, he can't deny that the _Magical X-Men_ fandom is a force for good, if not the necessary corrective Erik thinks they could be.

Charles continues to draw and write _Magical X-Men_ , although he splits his time between his home in New Salem, New York and Erik's secret lair in (location unknown). He now publishes _Magical X-Men_ under his own name and occasionally attends conventions, where the fandom is even more enthusiastic than ever.

Erik has turned over most of the controlling interest in the Brotherhood to Emma Frost, although he retains the deed to his secret lair in (location unknown). While Charles does not approve of this, he understands that every soon-to-be-former supervillain needs his inner sanctum. The lair is used mostly as a place for Erik to store his _Magical X-Men_ collection as well as a getaway from the hordes of fans who follow Charles around everywhere.

In the evenings Charles likes to read Erik the Professor X/Metallic Man subtext from the issue he's currently working on, and Erik likes to critique the performances of the actors in _Magical X-Men: First Class_. His major point of contention is that the Metallic Man actor's smile is not nearly intimidating enough, although he concedes that they do almost get Professor X's hair right.

At night they act out some of the racy scenes Charles writes just for Erik. And afterwards they curl up together, and if Erik occasionally dreams of how to enlist Charles's fanbase in the service of the mutant cause… Charles nudges his dreams in a happier, usually more erotic, direction. One night they have sex on the conquering cape, which requires Erik to find a new drycleaner.

***floats peacefully off into the sunset***


End file.
